Anyhow, this time, she had discovered a very odd link to me with another member of her tree. The surname of this person was “EberSpacher” which, at least to my ear, is not a common name and certainly not one I have in my tree. The link she discovered was in an archive of a newspaper and it was posted as part of a will/probate search for relatives, the strange part? well, it turns out that before going into a nursing home on the IOW for the last few year of her life, this lady lived in the house that Sue and I have now!

When we took on this place, the building society used by the previous occupants contacted us and asked if we would like a pile of historical documents about the property, its previous owners and the original builders etc. Of course I grabbed the pile quickly and following the recent email was able to use it to confirm that the “Eberspacher” mentioned was in fact the sister of a lady who had married one of our house  builders, and that I could also confirm that she had been left the house in a will as I have a copy of the probate document in the pile of stuff I was given.

I was able to fill in a load of holes for the emailer and I’m sure I have some more stuff for her somewhere (might even be a few photo’s of the people involved). She was over the moon with it all and I now have a lot more interest in the history of our house as well as completing a very odd circle of ownership via unknown relatives in the outer spiral arm of my family tree…..

The single thing which causes most problems for the WordPress users I know is uploading and positioning images in their posts. Hopefully I have found a solution which will make things quite a bit easier – it’s called “Freebie Images” and is a WP plugin – you can get it here.

I just installed it and it shows up nicely as a panel in the WP “Add New Post” dashboard. From there it’s just a case of:

• Searching for a suitable picture from the included stock library
• Dragging its thumbnail from the panel into the post
• Finetuning the result

Up at the top of this post is a pic chosen after searching for “F1″ and dragging my choice into position.

So far it looks a very useful tool – I’ll report back after a few more tests….

Not only is this book a list of interesting places to visit, it’s also a condensed mine of information about each one, describing why it’s worth a visit and providing weblinks for further reading.

Whilst there is only a slim chance I’ll get to visit all the sites mentioned, I’m tempted to have a go at the 40 odd in the UK! Unfortunately I have found no mention of the Isle of Wight so far but, as the guide covers the world, I suppose that’s hardly surprising! Nice to see Lacock Abbey and Fox Talbot getting a mention though.

I even saw that there’s some “White Noise” in there…

Taken from the website:

A quick guide to the DHRFestival

What is it?….. A festival for those who like to play and listen to the didgeridoo.
Where is it?….. The Water Mill, Calbourne, Isle of Wight
When is it?….. 7th to 9th August 2009
How much does it cost?…. £45 adult week-end camping ticket … £15 day ticket
What do you get for the money?….. All day and evening entertainment, nice surroundings, lots of nice things for the kids to do. This is a very ‘family friendly’ event!
What if I get hungry?….. There is a cafe on site.
What do I do if I want to perform at the festival or run a stall?….. Send us an eMail.
What if I want to know the meaning of life, who I am and what I’m doing here?…. There will be a stall on the campsite to help with all your additional information needs.

Sounds like a good laugh to me…

After a few months, as more people had tests done, the number of links grew a bit; again most of them were from people I knew and  shared the same or very similar surname (CURD, CURDS, CURDE etc) however, there were a couple (and now even more) who had other surnames! Perhaps even more surprisingly these were very close DNA matches differing in only 1 or 2 markers which makes it almost certain we share common ancestors. The fact that all these connected persons live in the USA made the match even more interesting. The surname with the most and best matches is ROSE which is obviously not one derived from CURD or one which could be easily mistaken for it.

I had previously contacted one or two of the ROSE relatives, but none could shed light on a possible connection – I assumed one of my ancestors must have “strayed” and, as there are many CURDs in the USA, I assumed the straying took place over there and left it at that; interesting diversion but one that seemed almost impossible to fully explain.

Today, I received an email from a W. ROSE in the USA:

Brian,  I understand that you are working on the Curd family
genealogy so you are probably aware of the fact that DNA of
a group of descendants of Robert ROSE & Dorothy match with
your Curd family descendants.  This Robert came to New England
in the 1630s and probably came from England, possibly Kent.
I’m forwarding the attached Article of the early Long Island, NY
settlers as Robert was the ROSE who was one of the first nine
settlers of Easthampton on Long Island in the 1640s having come
down from Lynn, MA.  This article states that six of the nine early
settlers came from Kent but we’re NOT certain at this time which
of these six are known to be from Kent.  It is possible that one is
our Robert ROSE whose wife was named Dorothy.
Based on there being Curd descendants who match our ROSEs,
there seems to be a connection between the two families and it
possibly began in the Kent area of England prior to the 1630 time
period.  We know that there were ROSEs living in that area so it
is possible that is where Robert came from and where the two
families connected. 
Thanks for your attention to this article and the possible connection
with our ROSE group.

Assuming this info is correct, it means that the “straying” appears to have taken place back here in Kent before 1630 and that my Hertfordshire CURD branch must be connected with KENT branch and also that the common CURD ancestor and therefore MY family were not from Hertfordshire after all!
Having been stuck in 1750 with one John CURD in Hertfordshire, this has rekindled my interest in the family’s history although finding records dating back so far won’t be easy!

The whole thing is a little resource hungry and slows the PC down a fair bit even when it isn’t actually serving the stream – the next step is to move the application to another machine and stream from that. I may even up the resolution and size a bit….